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The CITE, a blog published by the National Association of College Stores, takes a look at the intersection of education and technology, highlighting issues that range from course materials to learning delivery to the student experience. Comments, discussion, feedback, and ideas are welcome.

Friday, January 31, 2014

Textbook costs have been in the headlines since the
Student Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) released its surveythat found 65% of students said they did not purchase course materials because of the
price. It also reported that 82% of students said they would do better in a
class with free online access to course materials.

A professor at Temple University understands the angst,
but is unmoved. Students of Meredith Broussard’s digital journalism class are
asked to leave their electronic devices at home and bring the textbook, or at
the very least a printout of the class assignment, because she’s found that digital-native
students really have nothing more than a basic understanding on how to operate
the gadgets.

“For a couple of semesters, I patiently endured
students announcing their technical difficulties to the entire class,”
Broussard wrote in an article for The New Republic. “After a while, I realized that I was spending an awful
lot of class time doing tech support.”

Broussard admitted there’s a time and place for electronic
devices in the classroom and she likes reading on her Kindle, but she’s come to
the conclusion that the printed book is just easier to use. Legislative
initiatives, like the one in Florida to switch to digital textbooks in public
schools by 2015, make her nervous.

“E-books are not the best format for the way the
American education system works right now, nor do they allow students equal
opportunities for education,” she wrote. “When the myriad human-computer
interface issues get ironed out, and when e-books are logistically better than
print books, I’ll be happy to switch over. That day hasn’t arrived yet.
Sometimes, innovation means sticking with what works.”

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Net neutrality—the idea that all data on the Internet
should be treated equally without discriminating or charging differently—was in
the news recently when a federal appeals court ruled that regulations established
in 2010 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) went too far.

Open Internet rules prevented Internet Service providers (ISPs) from blocking or discriminating
against any legal website or online content. The appeals court ruled the FCC
cannot enforce those rules because the Internet isn’t considered a crucial
utility, such as telephone service or electricity.

Verizon, the company that brought the lawsuit, argued
the new ruling would provide customers with more innovation and choices.
Education experts worry the ruling will allow ISPs to control delivery of
services depending on how much content providers are willing to pay for.

“This is a terrible idea on every ground,” wrote Ravi
Ravishanker, chief information officer and associate dean at Wellesley College,
in his institutional blog.
“Given that everything happens on the Internet now, unless those dreaming up
creative ideas can pony up a lot more money to get the attention of the ISP,
they are dead in the water.”

Others are not so sure since the court also ruled the
FCC still has legal authority over broadband. Phil Hill, co-founder of the
education technology consulting firm MindWires, told Campus Technology the ruling should provide more freedom of access to Internet services.

“This should allow the FCC to implement new rules that
don’t step on the toes of the common-carrier rules,” he said. “In other words,
as long as the FCC doesn’t screw up, it should be able to regulate and enforce
net neutrality with future rules. But there will be a lot of overheated
rhetoric in the meantime.”

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

People who don’t actually work in education, bookselling,
or print publishing spout plenty of dour speculation about the survival of
these industries. When people who do work in these industries come together,
such as at Digital Book World’s recent conference, they explore worrisome
trends but also see a definite future.

NACS’ own
Tony Ellis, vice president of industry advancement, was among the participants
at the Making Information Pay in Higher Education event, produced by the Book Industry Study Group in conjunction with the DBW conference. A few of his key
takeaways from conference presentations are:

More
college students say their classes have no assigned textbooks. In many cases,
faculty are opting to use content within integrated learning systems, such as
Pearson’s MyLab online products.

Textbook
prices continue to be a deal-breaker for many students, with more engaging in
“illicit acquisition behaviors” to obtain their course materials. Once a book
price crosses the $30-$40 line, students are more likely to be tempted by
pirated content.

Even
though students prefer to study from print and e-book sales are slowing across
all reading genres, publishers are gung-ho about digital books, despite
difficulties with technology, standards, and data analytics. Still, they
acknowledge print will stick around for quite a while.

Bookstores
and libraries are expanding into new roles. Libraries are helping patrons learn
how to use digital materials. Stores are providing more services to help
authors, especially self-published ones. Both aim to be the place where readers
can discover titles and connect with authors.

Word
of mouth matters more than ever. The opinions of others, as expressed on social
media and other online sites, have more influence on consumers (especially
those of college age) than marketing, branding, and customer service.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Completion rates of massive open online courses (MOOCs)
may be low, but a survey by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher
Education (WICHE) found that more students are finishing online classes taken
on campus. The study, Managing Online Education,
reported that 78% of the students completed online courses taken on campus,
just 3% lower than the rate for in-person classes.

The problem, according to the WICHE report, is
publicity surrounding the much lower MOOC completion rates.

“Some have confused MOOC completion rates with those of
‘traditional’ online courses,” the report said. “These results show that online
completion rates track more closely with those in on-campus courses than is
found in MOOCs.”

The study also found that more than 85% of responding
institutions have developed standards for online course, but 65% were unable to
provide on-campus completion rates and 55% didn’t report the online rates.

“As is the case with all of higher education, there is
room for improvement,” the report concluded. “Perhaps the needed improvement is
not as much as some critics might claim.”

Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology followed
the WICHE study with data from 17 MOOCs offered by the two schools over the
last two years. The study found completion rates are misleading when judging
the potential of MOOCs.

“People are projecting their own desires onto MOOCs and
then holding them accountable for criteria that the instructors and
institutions, and, most importantly, students don’t hold for themselves,”
Andrew Dean Ho, associate professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education
and director of the MOOC research at the university, told The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Monday, January 27, 2014

The percentage of academic officers who said online learning
was important to their institution has fallen from 69.1% to 65.9%, according to
the 2013 Survey of Online Learningfrom the Babson Survey Research Group.The report blamed the decline on schools that don’t have online
offerings and have no plans to start.

The percentage of academic leaders who rated online
learning outcomes as the same or superior to face-to-face instruction rose from
57% in 2003 to 77% in 2012, but slipped to 74% in the 2013 report. The survey
noted more 26% of respondents from institutions without online offerings said
that learning outcomes were worse online, an increase of 3% since the 2012
report.

However, 90% of the respondents also said it was likely
or very likely that every college student will be taking at least one online
course by 2018, according to a report in eCampus News.

“Baccalaureate institutions continue to hold the most
negative views toward online education and are the largest proportion of
institutions with no online offerings,” the authors of the report wrote. “That
said, a majority of these institutions provide some level of online
instruction. Associate institutions have among the most favorable views towards
online and were among the earliest institutions to embrace online instruction.”

Friday, January 24, 2014

A new studyfrom the Pew Research Center showed that the number of adults who read an
e-book rose from 23% at the end 2012 to 28% by the end of 2013. It also
reported that 69% of Americans read a tradition book in the past year, up from
65% in 2012.

More than 1,000 adults, 18 years of age or older, were
surveyed between Jan. 2-5, 2014, for the study.

“Though e-books are rising in popularity, print remains
the foundation of Americans’ reading habits,” the authors of the report wrote.
“Most people who read e-books also read print books, and just 4% are ‘e-book
only.’”

Those statistics could soon begin to change. The survey
also found that in the final four months of 2013, ownership of tablet computers
rose from 34% to 42%, while adults who own dedicated e-readers jumped from 24%
to 32%.

The report indicated reading on e-readers has risen
from 41% to 57% since 2011, while reading on tablets went from 23% to 55%.
Cellphone reading rose from 28% to 32%, but reading on computers fell from 42%
to 29% over the same period.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Many
colleges and universities are looking for ways to shrink the out-of-pocket
expense of course materials in response to pressure from students, parents,
policymakers, and legislators. However, as campus administrators investigate
possible solutions, they’re sometimes coming under fire from faculty.

For
example, at Alamo Colleges in Texas, faculty were not at all happy with the
chancellor’s recent proposal to cut textbook costs by requiring each course
section to use the same materials, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Alamo comprises five
community colleges, with a number of the same courses taught by different
faculty at different campuses.

Faculty
viewed the proposal as infringing on their academic right to assign whatever
course materials they deem most suitable for the class. The chancellor saw it
as the means to negotiate bulk purchases of textbooks or license digital
materials to secure a lower per-unit cost.

For at
least some courses, only a digital version of the textbook would be available
to students, which also raised a red flag for faculty. They expressed concerns
about students without Internet access at home.

The
University of Utah is trying to avoid that kind of conflict. The UU Academic
Senate appointed a committee to come up with ways to snip as much as $500
annually from each student’s textbook tab, according to TheDaily Utah Chronicle.
The committee has representatives from faculty, staff (including the bookstore),
and students, who will work together to develop recommendations.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Perhaps it comes as no surprise, but
members of Congress really don’t have a firm grasp on what online education is.
In fact, a 2011 survey of representatives found that many thought distance
learning was basically correspondence classes. That led to the formation of an
e-learning caucus.

The primary goal of the caucus is to
educate elected representatives about online learning. The group has plenty of
work to do since members still fail to understand just how much online learning
has advanced or who the classes target.

“There’s this thought that most
participants are just coming for one or two classes, that online education is
just used for shorter-term certificate programs,” Julie Peller, director of
federal policy at the Lumina Foundation, told eCampus News.
“The number of students taking online courses, either completely or as part of
a brick-and-mortar program, is not widely known or discussed.”

That can be a problem when 14% of the
college population in the United States is taking courses entirely online,
according to a study from Learning House Inc. and the American Association of State Colleges and
Universities. A Sloan Consortium survey also found that 30% of the student
population took at least one online course in 2012.

“The goal has been to increase awareness of
e-learning, online education, and the issues that affect it,” said Rep. Jared
Polis (D-CO), who created the caucus with Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD). “We plan to
continue to have a good schedule of briefings to bring these issues to the
broadest audience of policymakers.”

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

At a CAMEX 2011 education session in
Houston, TX, Don Newton, executive director, CCSF Bookstore Auxiliary, City
College of San Francisco, told attendees he believed digital content would not gain
widespread acceptance until school-aged children began using it regularly. That
day is getting much closer, according to a study from PlayCollective and
Digital Book World.

The survey of 900 parents found that 67% of children age 2-13 now
read e-books, up 54% from a similar report from 2012. It also found that many of
the kids who read e-books said they read them every day, with nearly 92% reading
an e-book at least once a week.

Use of digital reading in the classroom was
cited as one of the main reasons for the increase in e-reading over the past
year.

“In the last year, based on this research,
the kids’ e-reading has reached and passed a tipping point,” said Paul Levine,
co-CEO of PlayCollective, in a reportin Digital Book World. “This is becoming a normal part of their lives and
becoming habitual.”

Monday, January 20, 2014

Technology is forcing higher education to
change. Some experts predict that disruptive forces will lead to the end of the
campus-life experience for students as institutions move to new ways of delivering
content.

A recent Wall Street Journalarticle even suggested the university of the future may just use the campus for its
amenities and not bother with hiring faculty since massive open online courses would
provide instruction.

“It’s a business model that just might
work, especially in geographic locations students favor,” the author wrote.
“Grand Cayman is awfully nice this time of year.”

A strategy to reimage college buildings is
already underway, according to Anthony Flint, author and fellow at the Lincoln
Institute of Land Policy. He cited an experiment at Bridgewater State
University in Massachusetts where dormitory space is being used for lectures and
a “tinkering space” being tested by the University of Utah as two examples in
an article for The Atlantic.

“It’s a fascinating rethinking of the
historic model of institutions cloistered behind ivy-covered walls,” Flint
wrote. “What seems to be equally true is that all the tiers of higher
education—elite privates, publics, community colleges—seem to be looking at
this reboot. MIT, Princeton, Caltech, Chicago, all are reassessing the
composition of the physical campus, trying to anticipate the brave new world.”

Friday, January 17, 2014

The U.S. Department of Education has been
working on a network aimed at organizing online academic content for educators.
The DOE recently finished the computer code for its Learning Registry, a free
tool that will connect educators with vetted resources.

DOE officials are trying to increase
participation in the system, according to a report in Education Week, and have
created a video to introduce the project.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

It seems as if only yesterday massive open
online courses (MOOCs) were all the rage. The New York Times proclaimed 2012 as “The Year of the MOOC”because they gave students an alternative to traditional classroom education, providing
free online courses (for no credit) from some of the most elite institutions in
the world.

In 2013, reality set in. Statistics started
showing that while many enrolled, few completed the courses despite little or
no cost. Then, late last year, one of the pioneers of the movement came out and
said MOOCs were “a lousy product.”

“I think that’s just honest, and I think we
should have an honest discourse about what we do,” Sebastian Thrun, co-founder
of MOOC provider Udacity, told Fast Company. “Online education that leaves almost everybody behind except for
highly motivated students, to me, can’t be a viable path to education. We look
back at our early work and realize it wasn’t quite as good as it should have
been.”

Thrun and other providers in the industry
have decided to change course a bit, putting more emphasis on employee job-training
classes for corporations, according to a report from National Public Radio. The updated platforms are being designed to include
more human support for students, such as the “learning hubs” Coursera is
developing that will provide a weekly in-person instructor.

“We have people almost 24/7 that help you
when you get stuck,” Thrun said. “We also added a lot of projects that require
human feedback and human grading. And the human element—surprise,
surprise—makes a huge difference in the student experience and the learning
outcomes.”

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

While
the initial burst of enthusiasm over massive open online courses (MOOCs) may
have expired, a wrapup report on a MOOC tied to a TV show about zombies reveals
there may still be some life in the format.

As
previously recounted on The CITE, Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from
AMC’s The Walking Dead was offered
last fall at no charge on Instructure’s Canvas Network platform, taught by a
multidisciplinary panel of professors from the University of California at
Irvine with some involvement from the show’s cast and crew.

Some
65,000 people worldwide signed up for the eight-week course. One of its chief
aims was to determine whether more students would persist to completion if instructors
applied the scientific concepts to an apocalypic survival scenario, albeit a
fictional one. According to Instructure’s new report, that goal was achieved.

Instructure
doesn’t say how many students remained at the end, but about 12,000 filled out
an exit survey, suggesting a much higher percentage finished than in the usual
MOOC. About 59% had never taken any type of online course before and 83.6% had
never taken a MOOC. But, 83% said they spent at least an hour a week on course
assignments, not including watching that week’s new episode.

Not
all of the enrollees were fans of the show, some indicating instead they were intrigued
by the multidisciplinary approach and its application. More than half of the
survey respondents said they’d be more apt to take another MOOC with
multidisciplinary content than a single-topic course.

And
that may reveal the real key to student success in MOOCs and any other
educational format: When the course content and course materials are brought to
life in an interesting way, more students remain engaged in the topic and make
it through the course.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Many colleges and universities offer online
content through iTunes U, but use other providers for their learning management
system (LMS) because the Apple software doesn’t provide features such as analytics,
attendance tracking, and gradebooks. Lynn University, Boca Raton, FL, is going
the other direction, phasing out Blackboard Learn in favor of iTunes U.

Lynn is already a committed Apple campus,
piloting a program that replaced textbooks with iPad minis in January 2013.
That program was expanded last fall to include all freshmen, transfer students,
and upperclassmen enrolled in core classes. The university plans to issue minis
to more than 2,000 students next fall.

The move to iTunes U makes sense for Lynn because
its pilot program showed that students using the iPad earned better grades than
those who didn’t use the device. In addition, the study found that
three-quarters of the students preferred using the iBook created for the course
over a traditional textbook.

“Since we are moving forward with content
and making sure that a device is available for every kid, we wanted to make
sure they had a mobile environment,” said Chris Boniforti, chief information
officer at Lynn.

Lynn will probably use iTunes to host
content and assignments and will have to develop its own system to track those analytical
features not offered through iTunes, according to the report in Inside Higher Ed. But the move does provide Lynn students with a
mobile-first LMS that doesn’t require them to switch between systems to use.

A survey of Lynn students enrolled in core
courses in fall 2013 found that 94% felt the tablet contributed to their
learning experience and 90% still used the device in classes that didn’t
require it. Sixty-one percent of the students added that getting an iPad mini
helped them decide to attend Lynn.

All Lynn courses will use iTunes U to host
content and assignments by this fall, but only about a third will feature free
iBooks created by Lynn faculty members. The rest will use traditional textbooks.
Moving a course to the iTunes U system only requires knowing where to upload
content and which boxes to use for text for those faculty members unwilling to
create their own iBooks.

“The next thing for me is to make sure that
this is better than the way we’ve been doing it,” said Michael P. Petroski, who
manages faculty development for the tablet initiative. “That sort of keeps me
up at night: to make sure it’s not a cool gimmick.”

Monday, January 13, 2014

The new year has just begun, but two
reports have already come out that show public nonprofit universities are well
ahead of private institutions when its comes to online education, according to
a piecein eCampus News.

Public universities dominate the online
education categories in the 2014 U.S. News and World Report college ranking,
while a study done by Learning House Inc. and the American Association of State
Colleges and Universities (AASCU) found that 14% of American college students responding
to the survey take online courses only, but just 20% of those take online courses
at private nonprofit schools. The report also said that nearly half of online
college students study at public nonprofit universities, with a third receiving
an online education at for-profit colleges.

In the study Online Learning at Private
Colleges and Universities, 59% of the responding chief academic officers
reported that faculty time and effort were key barriers to online education at
private institutions.

“Technology has enabled students and
faculty members to learn and teach online,” wrote authors of the AASCU report.
“Faculty members have learned how to use the technology and how to adapt their
courses to online delivery; librarians, bookstore managers, tutors, and
advisors have learned how to provide services to remote students who never come
to campus; and chairs, deans, and provosts have learned how to develop and
market online programs and how to lead faculty members who live elsewhere.“Private colleges and universities have
each responded differently to this technology. Some have rejected it as
contrary to their mission to provide personalized, intimate learning
environments, while others have embraced the technology with an entrepreneurial
spirit.”

Friday, January 10, 2014

Four years
ago, e-book readers and tablets were the hot stars of the famed ConsumerElectronics Show. At this year’s CES, underway Jan. 7-10 in Las Vegas,
standalone e-readers aren’t even lukewarm but a new generation of tablets still
occupies the spotlight.

A host of
new tablet models, representing a variety of features and forms, are on display
at the show, according to C/net. Manufacturers seem to be trying to figure out
just what consumers want in a tablet. Do they need one with a stylus, a larger
screen (up to 12.2 in.), mini versions with cellphone capabilities, or a
stripped-down model with a cheaper pricetag? How about a hybrid laptop/tablet
that can boot up both Windows 8.1 and Android operating systems?

Tablets will
almost certainly gain ground with college students, who would rather tote
something lighter than a laptop around campus, especially if all they want to
do is take notes and go online.

Wired.com’s
CES coverage also highlighted a new higher-end tablet that might work well for
professors doing field research or campus retailers handling off-site sales at
the stadium. The Panasonic Toughpad can be dropped without damage from a normal
standing or desk height, resists dust and water, and comes with ports for a
payment-card reader, bar-code reader, GPS unit, or extra battery.

For the
first time, a section of the CES floor was devoted to showcasing new
developments produced by higher-education incubators. The Academia TechTechZone features innovations from seven institutions.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Faculty at the California Institute of
Technology (Caltech) decided on a policy that requires them to grant
open-access rights to their scholarly papers. The move will make their work
more readily available and help simplify the copyright process, according to a
reportin Campus Technology.

Copyright issues are a big reason for the new
policy because it prevents publishers of the many journals in which Caltech
research appears from suing authors who post their content to their own online
sites or the institute’s online repository. It also complies with a directive
from the United States Office of Science and Technology that requires federally
funded research be made available for free within a year of publication.

Caltech faculty will continue to publish in
academic journals and can still grant exclusive rights to their work; they just
need to request a waiver from the policy.

“Ideas are most powerful when they are free
to move, not held behind a screen until they are purchased from a vendor,” said
Brenda Fultz, professor or material science and applied physics at Caltech.
“The new open-access policy at Caltech increases the impact of our ideas by
better connecting them to the information society around us.”

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

In just five years, Southern New Hampshire
University has gone from a struggling 2,000-student private school to become the
“Amazon.com of higher education” with an enrollment of 34,000. University President
Paul LeBlanc recognized that the university’s online division had the potential
for rapid growth and could produce new revenues.

“The business models implicit in higher
education are broken,” LeBlanc said in an article in Slate magazine. “Public institutions will not see increasing state funding
and private colleges will not see ever-rising tuition.”

The problem, according to LeBlanc, was an
immersive educational system designed to accommodate 18-year-olds instead of students
who are working adults with schedules that rarely fit into academic schedules. The
commitment to the SNHU online division produced a web site that offers 180
programs and full-time admissions counselors who will call prospective students
within minutes after they click on a program.

The online courses run for eight weeks and
combine readings, problems, and videos, with weekly assignments and a final
project. Instructors use predictive analytics to keep an eye on students’
progress and identify those who are having trouble.

Critics say it’s a cookie-cutter approach
and question exactly what kind of education the university is delivering.
Faculty complain the television advertising is too slick and worry their jobs
may be in jeopardy, but SNHU enrollment figures suggest it certainly seems to
be working.

The university has already started to
expand the program, offering degrees requiring students to master different
competencies instead of working through courses and with faculty. One term
costs $1,250 and students who complete 120 competencies earn an associate’s
degree.

“We are super-focused on customer service,
which is a phrase that most universities can’t even use,” LeBlanc said.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Colleges and universities are facing increasing
pressure to graduate more students quicker and for less money. Policymakers at some
institutions have responded by reducing the number of required credits, cutting
certain major fields of study, and giving credit for life experiences.

Now, some professors are asking if this push for
efficiency is leading to lower-quality education. A group of faculty members plan to meet later
this month in New York to discuss the issue.

“There are a whole bunch of policies—like getting
students through more quickly—most of which don’t pay attention to what they
are learning,” Debra Humphreys, vice president, Association of American Colleges and University, told The Atlantic.
“It could be making a bad situation worse if we don’t look at the impact of not
only how many students but what they learn.”

One area of concern is policies that include
performance-based funding. While critics contend that a U.S. graduation rate of
56% is unacceptable, too little is known on how such policies affect the
quality of what is being taught.

Humphreys added, “Getting students through more
efficiently, more quickly, and with the learning they need, we need to pay
attention to all three. Otherwise, at least one will suffer.”

Monday, January 6, 2014

Teams of educators now have a way to create online
courses. The open-publishing platform Versalis beta-testing its Versal for Teams application that provides instructors with
a platform to build courses that include text, video, quizzes, and customizable
interactive simulations that can be published and shared with learners through a web site or blog.

The tool is set up for nonprogrammers, allowing them to
drag and drop items into the course. The team edition provides a dashboard for
managing author activity, course progress, and learner success tracking.

“We instantly started hearing feedback from companies
and universities that they loved the ability to create and publish courses, but
needed tools to manage everything internally. This is only our first step in
building out a platform that is flexible for anyone—individual instructors and
organizations alike,” Versal founders and CEO Gregor Freund told Campus Technology.

The base program is free and includes one gigabyte of
storage for the development of three courses that can be accessed by up to 100
people. Prices range from $250 to $5,000 per month for teams needing the bandwidth
to create more courses.

Friday, January 3, 2014

The most well-known application of predictive analytics
software is credit scoring, providing financial institutions with a ranking of
the likelihood a customer will make future credit payments on time. The
technology is also finding its way onto college campuses as a tool to help
students improve grades and stay in school.

Four schools in Tennessee found that students using
Degree Compass software created by Desire2Learn to select courses had a much
higher rate of success than peers who chose courses on their own. The average
number of credit hours passed by students using the technology for 12 credit
hours was 10.66, compared to just two credit hours passed for students who
didn’t use Degree Compass at one school.

The software compares information from a student’s
transcript with data from thousands of other students to generate
individualized course suggestions ranked on a five-star scale.

“I am very excited about the latest data that shows
more and more clearly how students of all abilities succeed when they follow
the recommendations from Degree Compass,” Tristan Denley, vice chancellor for
academic affairs at the Tennessee Board of Regents, said in a reportin eCampus News.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

2013 wasn’t a great year for e-readers. Sales of the
devices continued to decline and a study released in December found that 60% of the consumers who downloaded e-books
never read them. Michael Kozlowski, editor of the blog goodereader.com, is
predictingmore of the same in 2014.

First, E Ink will start moving away from e-reader
technology. The e-reader business has been losing ground to tablet technology
for more than a year and Kozlowski wrote that expansion into the digital
signage market will be its next move.

The E Ink shift away from e-reader technology may be
helped along if Kozlowski is right about Barnes and Noble. He predicted that since
B&N makes more money on digital content sales, it will decide to give up on
the Nook. He also expects Sony to give up on its e-reading devices to focus
more on tablet and multimedia-based experiences.

He also predicted declines in both reading on tablet
devices and e-books in general.

Reading on tablets will decline because manufacturers
will move away from producing as many tablets in favor of more smartphones in
2014, which should produce more smartphone readers. Or maybe, with e-book sales
flat or in decline throughout 2013, people will just head back to hardcover and
paperback books.

“With the way things have gone in 2013 in the e-reader
and tablet sector, some people may be optimistic about the future,” Kozlowski
wrote. “I, for one, am not.”